Red Dove
News from across the RCEU
4th November 2024
Dr. Maçon on Immigration and the Eastern Ulvriktru baby boom
Estée Giroux
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon, is a leading Rochefortist social economist at Université du Progrès de Batkong, member of the Immigration and Assimilation Subcommittee, Advisor of the Together Lapérouse! and sits on the board for Peninsula United. Being appointed as the Senior Economic-Statistician of the Northern Petite-Nations by Madame Pierre in 2023, and Federal State Representative to the Federal-Wide Rural Communities Assembly. In addition to publishing various studies on the socio-economic impact of the Côtois Goth Revolution of the 80s and the growth of the tech-towns in rural areas.
Dr. Maçon has campaigned for immigration reform, arguing for tightening restrictions and introducing a quota to limit the amount the flow of immigrants flowing into the country. Starting from the 2000s, Dr. Maçon has argued for decreasing the amount of immigrants coming into the country and removing the ‘Nouvelle Vie’ or ‘New Life’ policy. The ‘New Life’, being a Federal immigration policy of letting immigrants who land arrive to the country with a criminal record, debts or other assorted things that would traditionally cause immigrants to be rejected by other nations. It has been a topic of controversy internationally and domestically since the creation of the policy in the 1940s during the first immigrant wave to the Federation as the policy effectively establish a new identity for the person or persons, with records of the old identity only being held by the federal government which to date, which as a manner of law does the Côtois government does not share. Dr. Maçon has pushed for higher requirements for immigrants coming into the Federation, and has only increased intensity in recent years.
Mrs. Giroux: “Thank you for coming Dr. Maçon. Could you explain what made you more intense with pushing for immigration reform?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Thank you for inviting me, as for your question it can be boiled down to three reasons. First is the easiest to explain, the technological inventions particularly with traditional jobs that tend to be filled by immigrants or SNE recipients have been steadily being made. Examples would be the robotic farmer units, like the automatic berry picker or potato planter. Which cultivatechnicien have been making use off already, and the more professional full-time agricultural workers have expressed keen interest in when the equipment becomes more large scale.
The second aspect is more complicated, coming from the promises of the Goth Revolution, and the social conflict between the Solarists, Goths and the Old Guards. Goth and Solarists being both aligned somewhat that Côtois identity needs to be further unified, though the Goth pushed for a return to Lapérousian identity while the Solarists pushed for change of the Côtois identity. The bigger breakdown between them however was the identity conflict but how to deal with religion. The Goths wanted to remove secularization policies, but only towards religions that didn’t originate from Queendom times, only the Eastern Ulvriktru, Akuanism, Duarism and Gotisvnoiedoda. Other religions that came from immigrants would still be under the religious secularization values. Now I won’t get into too much detail for their reasoning or we will be here all day. However, an incredibly oversimplified reason is that every [native] ethnicity has its origins within one of the four religions, and the secularization policy targets them. However the Solarists meanwhile maintain the secularizations go too far but maintain that religion is only for private life rather to be expressed. However both of them massively overlooked the many religions and ethnicities that came from the outside, even when those groups had been part of the community for nearly four decades. It’s a complicated topic but the promises made during all this social unrest were rather simple, the Federation will become in some aspects, more socially conservative but economically left-wing, still being socialist of course but the government will adopt a more conservative approach to manners of a social nature which was dripped down to a petite-nation level rather than the federal level. Promises of the religion were never truly brought into fruition truly, but other aspects such as getting rid of eugenics policies and adding a restriction to abortion limiting it to six-months for non-kemonomimi and two-months for kemonomimi. Getting rid of the controversial post-birth abortions was of course gotten rid of. However much of those promises given by leaders of that era were not kept or were only done-so half-hardly. As such there is still the fear that the native traditions and more importantly the chamber of the Ethnicities that they will become irrelevant and replaced by a bureaucratic system devoted of life.”
Mrs. Giroux: “If you excuse my interruption but could you simplify that or provide an example?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Of course, so a good example would be with the Sinhadran own petite-nation, the Federal government recently ruled that the local tradition of having their children go out camping together alone in the Noirbois Féérine would be banned due to concerns of child safety and that it was too religious in nature. Despite the camping tradition having very little to-do with Gotisvnoiedoda altogether. The matter is still being discussed in parliament however it’s those sort of overzealous civil servants from a federal level that make them concerned even more so when you consider after the fact. That those same civil servants try to make a compromise by saying that they can ‘fix’ the tradition by having professionals with them, security cameras and all that sort with the youths going out camping. Missing the point of the tradition all together, of youths going through adulthood. Another example would be religious holidays, such as Yule is still strictly barred from being celebrated in public on a petite-national level with the only expectation being in Caenfjord. Despite promises it would be legalized again meanwhile minority holidays, celebrated by the Ayalists are still tolerated to be openly celebrated despite some limited push back from a petite-nationale level.”
Mrs. Giroux: “So you’re saying there is a double standard, against Eastern Ulvriktruers when compared to religions with much smaller population.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “To some degree there is, however it’s not been some changes. Madame Pierre has instructed ministers to no-longer fine or punish public displays of Yule on a petite-nation level provided however it’s still on the books on the federal level.”
Mrs. Giroux: “Thank you, sorry for interrupting, please continue on.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “It’s quite alright, my third point somewhat ties both my previous reasons or well it just might not at all. With this massive child boom we’re currently in, Eastern Ulvriktruers are having children at a nearly unprecedented rate. Eastern Ulvriktru makes up more than a third of the Federation, and on average will have three to four kids after 2018 with no signs of slowing down so far, if anything it looks like it is jumping to six to seven kids since the start of 2024. To put this in more perspective on average a woman would need two children to have a replacement rate for a generation. The Federation for some all sorts of reasons, had an above average birth rate for most nations and far above the norm for developed nations. However this most recent development, strangely enough and I can’t emphasize this enough only people that religious Eastern Ulvriktru have been having an explosion of births and marriages.
Marriages being a particularly surprising factor here, Hjørdist couples are getting married sooner than they ever have before. New trend is to merge promisee and engagement stages together. Pre-2018 the average waiting time from being a promisee to a final wedding day was about two-three years, of being in a relationship. With the average marriage age being 26 and a half. Now the trend for marriage age is more like 20 to 21 and only after a year of relationship development. This is absolutely abnormal, if not insane, for any developing nation especially one with a large welfare state like ours. We have so many methods of birth control, but the kids are just not using them. They’re getting married and having children, a lot of them too. An interesting factor is these newly married couples tend to be quite religious as well though still Monarcho-Socialist but a strange blend with it.
The massive increase in childbirths is part of the reason why when you look at Madame Pierre’s economic policies, or even at some petite-nation new economic plans they have been rolling out. Côtois generally have an extremely low emigration rate with native born citizens already and then you add on the high level of education most go through, with mandatory higher education and all. You end up with a concerning outlook, and a lot of those economic plans and policies start to make far more sense. You have a lot of people with degrees or worker certifications during these double industrial revolutions both in terms of automation with AI and robotics as well the green revolution going on. This is not taking in the cost of raising and educating those children before they enter the workforce.
Now speaking from a purely economic standpoint like some sort of capitalist, this is a great problem to have. However, from a more sociological perspective, it does mean we’re going to see a shift both in politics and in demographics back towards pre-immigration wave times. Which of course raises a whole host of issues for both petite-nation and federal governments in the future.”
Mrs. Giroux: “Well now you say that, I have seen a lot of children around.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “It’s more than that, teachers and daycare workers are having more students to deal with. Given the federal guarantee that every family will have a daycare service as part of the charter of rights. So it ends up taking more of the budget, you see this when Madame Pierre is forcibly cooperativization several former state owned companies, cutting government agencies if not outright removing several bureaus and a big focus on starting new businesses both within and out the Federation. Though I would say Madame Pierre should focus on establishing a lockbox fund that will be opened in 2030 or 2035 as a venture cooperative fund. However I can see her administration’s perspective of getting the ball rolling through her Green Industry 10-Year plan venture and expanding into more international focuses.”
Mrs. Giroux: “How large of population do you think the Federation could be looking at in 2030 then?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “It is hard to say, but keep in mind our last Federal census was only four years ago in 2020. We’re looking at a massive group of children that have to be educated, provided for and all manner of things governed by our Charter of Rights. You already see quite a few of our major players in the economy already enacting moves for this, Gyllir making more car-seats for Kem-cars, Jætte just signed a new contract expanding out their relationship with the education ministry to purchase more equipment for classrooms on a never-before seen scale and government is issuing benefits for those become pediatrician, teachers, daycare workers and those assorted fields. Now we certainly have enough pediatricians and teachers, but the daycare centers are currently stressed out still. We’re still on just the edge of it as well.”
Mrs. Giroux: “Good Grief, special thanks to all our childcare workers out there. Looks like you’re in for a rough decade.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Of course we can’t predict the future, and no model is truly 100% accurate but the petite-nation census doesn’t lie. Our numbers are telling us we’re in for a big nativist Kemonomimi, religious Eastern Ulvriktru wave in the coming future if the numbers tell us anything. Particularly within the Jarldom petite-nations, which will most certainly raise some issue with the Akuan, Duarist and Gotisvnoiedoda petite-nations. Then the whole business with the religions that came from our immigrants like the Kozam or Ayalism, which of course will raise a bit of concern if not from them but from these new Eastern Ulvriktru family units forming.”
Mrs. Giroux: “What do you mean by Ulvriktruer family units? As in why would they be considered about outside religious groups and ethnicities that originate from immigration? I do find some of your comments a bit odd, why would religion matter?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Well, these new parents, at least according to the recent polls, are disregarding the more traditional established faction system we used to have, with this new political system and the control disintegration of the former Royal Workers’ Party. Of course it is too early to say and all, but it looks like they’re more aligned to the idea of left-wing nationalism though still believing in RCEU and Internationalism. What we’re looking at a lot of new parents who are looking more towards the Temples for guidance on how to live their lives than government advisory boards as we previously saw in previous generations. If we look at some of the more recent headcount taxes for temple service for Eastern Ulvriktru, with the census data provided we are seeing a lot more people attending all three services throughout the week in person. This goes beyond just the rural and urban divide as well that we’re used to.”
Mrs. Giroux: “You didn’t really answer the question.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “To put in the most blunt terms, and not to beat around the push. Eastern Ulvriktru is anti-pluralist.”
Mrs. Giroux: “Could you explain more on that?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Eastern Ulvriktru temples and as a faith, believes that only people of the Sagas should live within our peninsula. As well being particularly being against the other branches living within the peninsula this isn’t to say they’re outright supremacist of course and we’re still rather particular with the land we inhabit-”
Mrs. Giroux: “So are you saying Eastern Ulvriktru temples are against having those outside of the Sagas, like Akuanists, Duarists and Gotisvnoiedoda worshipers shouldn’t be allowed in our country?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “I’m not saying that at all, before you interrupted. That belief is only on the far more traditionalist line of thinking. It is far too early to say what sort of people they will be in all honesty, yes it has been more than five years since the start of this boom.”
Mrs. Giroux: “Five years is a long time, at least for us Kemonomimi right? Surely we can make some assumptions for this?”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “No we can’t really, for most of these new parents. If anything these new parents are a new form of political grouping, bridging across the rural hybrid-collar working class and urbanized working class. Religiously they’re more of a blend of a progressive and traditionalist values being formed. It’s far different from the Lapérousian diaspora such as in Norgsveldet or Ejyaria. What we’re looking at is the start of a socialist Eastern Ulvriktru group being formed, the primordial formation of the voting base being formed. Though I think we’re getting away from our original topic of immigration.”
Mrs. Giroux: “i think that’s all the time we have reserved for but thank you for coming out here.”
Dr. Élisabeth Maçon: “Oh, no worries, thank you for inviting me.”